My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Saturday, 1 July 2017

“Twickenham”, 1813–18, plate 3 from the series, “Liber Studiorum”,
published by H G Bohn in 1838 in "Liber Studiorum - A Series of Sketches
and Studies by John Sell Cotman.”

Soft-ground etching (i.e. “a method of printmaking in which a
drawing is made on a sheet of paper on a soft etching ground, pulled off, and
the resulting design transferred to the plate by etching” BM) on cream wove
paper with wide margins and lined onto a heavy wove support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 26.9 x 42.1 cm; (plate) 17.9 x 30.5 cm

Lettered at the upper-right corner with the plate number, “3“, and
inscribed below the image at centre with the title: “Twickenham”.

Condition: superb impression in very good condition for its age
(i.e. there are no tears, holes, abrasions, folds or foxing). The print is laid
onto a support sheet of heavy wove white paper as the pressure of the platemark
has weakened the integrity of the paper.

I am selling this original and rare soft-ground etching by one of
the acknowledged masters of the English landscape, JS Cotman, for a total cost
of AU$164 (currently US$126.04/EUR110.42/GBP96.84 at the time of this listing)
including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this major print by Cotman,
please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal
invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

“On the Yare, Norfolk”, 1813–18, plate 4 from the series, “Liber
Studiorum”, published by H G Bohn in 1838 in "Liber Studiorum - A Series
of Sketches and Studies by John Sell Cotman.”

Soft-ground etching on cream wove
paper with wide margins.

Size: (sheet) 24.2 x 32.9 cm; (plate) 15.5 x 20.4 cm

Lettered at the upper-right corner with the plate number, “4“, and
inscribed below the image at left with the title: “On the Yare, Norfolk”.

Condition: superb impression in very good condition for its age
(i.e. there are no tears, holes, abrasions, folds or foxing).

I am selling this original and rare soft-ground etching for a total cost
of AU$164 (currently US$126.04/EUR110.42/GBP96.84 at the time of this listing)
including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this major print by Cotman,
please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal
invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

All of Cotman’s soft-ground etchings were executed before 1818 but
they were not published until 1938 by HG Bohn—a few years before the artist
died.

Interestingly, in the process of printing the Bohn edition the
plates became worn/“exhausted” and, as a result, marvellous impressions like
these are rare. Certainly, beyond early pre-lettered proofs, the only
original etchings from the “Liber Studiorum” series that may be found on the
market are those from the very limited Bohn edition.

One of the advantages of the soft-ground etching process is that
the artist draws directly and fluidly onto a piece of paper laid over the
sticky ground of the prepared etching plate. Moreover, the lines transferred to
the plate while drawing on the paper become a true record of the varying
pressure exerted by the artist when making each stroke. Accordingly, this print
has all the intrinsic beauty of a drawing in that it reveals slight hesitations
as he thinks and observes the subject in front of him (see, for example, the
hesitancy in Cotman’s depiction of the key points of interest) and, by
contrast, an almost calligraphic flow when he works unhesitatingly (as seen,
for example, in the rendering of the foliage mass of the trees).